mobile wallet

Credit union membership is at an all-time high, thanks to our rising disillusionment with traditional banks. Banks, after all, are run by executives aiming to enrich stockholders, while credit unions are owned by, and run for the benefit of, their members. But that doesn't mean credit unions are right for everyone.

In what at first glance seems like a step backward in the mobile payment space, Google Wallet is close to launching a physical plastic card. So much for all the oracles predicting the imminent fall of cash and plastic.

For all the hype about the rise of mobile payment technology -- use-your-smartphone-to-pay systems -- the reality is that it has been slow to catch on. But there is one place where it's starting to gain real traction: peer-to-peer exchanges.

Read the tech news these days, and you could be forgiven for thinking that folding cash and credit cards will soon be extinct, replaced by digital wallets in our smartphones. But the reality hasn't lived up to the hype, and a growing chorus of experts say it probably never will.

Using your smartphone as your mobile wallet is great -- until the battery dies. A number of technical solutions exist to solve that problem -- but none so fashionable as the EverPurse, a stylish zippered clutch with a built-in phone charger.

People who regularly use money transfer services just got another digital leg up. MoneyGram International is partnering with Gemalto, the company behind the LinqUs Mobile Money digital wallet, to allow customers to do money transfers straight from their smartphones.

Apple's iPhone 5 added many new features, but one highly-anticipated improvement was left out: the near-field communications chip that would allow you to make purchases with a wave of the smartphone, using your built-in mobile wallet.